General Education Requirement "S" - Natural Science & Technology

General Education Curriculum As approved by the Faculty Senate through 10/22/97

Natural Sciences and Technology: Curriculum Standards

Six credits in science and technology shall be required of all undergraduate students. Remedial courses shall not count toward this requirement. Required standards for a course to be included in the list of authorized courses that satisfy the science and technology requirement are:

All courses in the Science and Engineering Academic Councils which emphasize fundamental scientific concepts or application of scientific methods in critical thinking and problem solving in the natural sciences; or

Courses offered by other departments, and proposed by the Department that will offer them, whose primary purpose is to apply fundamental scientific concepts or application of scientific methods in critical thinking and problem solving in the natural sciences.

Objectives

Students will explain the scientific method of inquiry (the "Scientific Method").

Students will recognize the fundamental uncertainty inherent in science.

Students will recognize the role of experimentation in resolving the uncertainties in science.

Students will recognize problem areas where the scientific method can be appropriately applied.

Outcomes

Students will demonstrate the ability to apply the scientific method to solve problems.

Students will demonstrate the ability to construct an analytical model from a verbal statement describing some physical phenomenon.

Students will demonstrate the ability to conceptualize a hypothesis based on empirical data.

Students will demonstrate the ability to design an "experiment" to test the hypothesis.

Students will demonstrate the ability to express conclusions and implications verbally or graphically.